Image Licensing

How Licensing Works Here

The prints on this site are for sale. The photographs are not. A print purchase transfers a physical, editioned object into your hands. The image itself, the right to reproduce it, publish it, or build a campaign on it, is never sold. It is licensed. There is a difference, and it matters.

When you license an image from Keene Fine Art, you are acquiring the right to use that photograph in a specific way, in a specific place, for a specific period of time. The copyright stays with the artist. It always does. That is not a KFA quirk; it is how professional fine art photography licensing has worked for decades, and it is how it works here.

All KFA licenses are rights-managed. We do not offer royalty-free, unlimited, or perpetual licenses. Rights-managed means the license is priced and written around your actual use, nothing more, nothing broader. You pay for what you need. When the term ends, the rights end. If you want to keep using the image, we renew.

If that sounds restrictive, consider the alternative: a royalty-free image that your closest competitor can license tomorrow. Rights-managed licensing is how you get imagery your competitors cannot touch.

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I Bought a Print. What Did I Actually Acquire?

The print. The physical object, the edition number, the certificate, and the right to display it privately for as long as you own it.

What you did not acquire: the copyright, reproduction rights, or the right to scan, photograph, publish, or commercially exploit the image. A limited edition print is an artwork, not a licensing agreement. If you want to use the image in a campaign, a publication, or a commercial space beyond private display, that requires a license. Read on.

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Licensing Categories

Advertising and Commercial Use Print and digital advertising, brand campaigns, packaging, corporate marketing, websites, and social media used to promote a product or service. Priced by media type, placement, size, territory, and term.

Editorial and Publishing Magazines, newspapers, books, and digital editorial. Editorial licenses cover use that informs or illustrates; they do not cover use that sells. Priced by circulation, placement (interior, cover, wrap), size, and edition.

Display Use Corporate offices, hospitality, healthcare, and public interiors where reproduction beyond a KFA edition print is required, such as oversized installations, murals, or multi-site programs. Also covers set design for film and television.

Film, TV, and Streaming Background or featured use in productions. Priced by production type, distribution scope, and term.

If your use is not listed, ask. Unusual requests are usually the interesting ones.

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What a Quote Requires

Rights-managed pricing is calculated, not guessed. To quote your license we need:

• The image. Title or URL from this site.
• The use. Advertising, editorial, display, film/TV, or other.
• The medium. Print, digital, broadcast, out-of-home, packaging.
• Size and placement. Quarter page or double spread. Homepage or interior. Lobby wall or elevator bank.
• Territory. One country, one region, or worldwide.
• Term. Industry standard runs one to five years. We do not write ten-year licenses.
• Print run or audience size. Circulation, impressions, or number of units where applicable.
• Exclusivity. See below.

Send those details through the contact page and you will receive a written quote and license agreement. No calculators, no automated checkout. Licensing is a conversation because your use is not generic.

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Exclusivity

Exclusivity is available and priced accordingly. An exclusive license guarantees that no competitor in your industry, territory, or media channel can license the same image during your term. For brand work, this is usually the point. Tell us the scope of exclusivity you need and we will build it into the agreement.

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Licensing and Editions

Three facts, stated plainly:

Licenses do not consume edition numbers. Every KFA edition count is fixed at release. A license never adds a print to an edition, borrows a number from it, or reduces what remains.

Editions and licenses are separate rights. An edition print is a physical, signed, numbered artwork you own. A license is a temporary, written permission to reproduce an image for a defined use. They operate on different objects under different agreements and neither affects the other.

The artist retains the copyright. Always. Every image on this site remains the copyrighted property of the artist regardless of how many prints sell or how many licenses are written. No purchase and no license transfers copyright, in whole or in part.

Beyond that: a licensed reproduction is not a fine art print. It is not signed, not numbered, carries no certificate of authenticity, and is not part of any edition. When a license term ends, the reproduction rights end with it. Certain images, particularly Nonpareil editions, may be withheld from display-use licensing entirely at the artist's discretion. Scarcity is the product. Licensing does not get to touch it.

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What Is Never Licensed

• Copyright transfer. The artist retains copyright to every image, registered and enforced. A license grants use, not ownership.
• Royalty-free or perpetual use. Every license has a defined term and defined scope.
• Sublicensing or resale. Your license is yours. It cannot be transferred, resold, or extended to third parties.
• Derivative products. Merchandise, templates, or products where the image is the product require a separate negotiated agreement.
• AI training. No image from this site may be used to train, fine-tune, or otherwise feed machine learning or generative AI systems. This exclusion is written into every license and applies whether or not you asked.
• Removal of embedded copyright data. Metadata and watermarks stay. Stripping them violates federal law under the DMCA, not just our patience.

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Copyright Notice

All photographs on this site are the original work of the artist and are protected under United States copyright law and the Berne Convention, which extends that protection across more than 170 countries automatically. Registration with the United States Copyright Office is ongoing across the catalog. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution is infringement and is pursued.

If you found one of our images somewhere and want to use it properly, good instinct. Start with the contact page.

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Start a Licensing Inquiry

Send the image title, your intended use, and the details listed above. You will receive a quote and a plain-language license agreement stating exactly what you can do, where, and for how long.